The United States remains a reliable ally for Europe, despite EU leadership

The NATO meeting on Thursday is being called, by some commentators, a "catastrophe", and a "turning point" for the world order. The Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe does not recognise this analysis. ACRE President Jan Zahradil MEP stated:

"Contrary to German Chancellor, ACRE believes that USA and UK are still reliable partners and allies of Europe, not the opposite."

Rather, ACRE is concerned by the myopic, sychophantic posturings of Europe's leaders toward the President of the United States.

After meeting with President Trump, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, said that they did not share the same opinion on Russia - which would not have been a welcome admission for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who sought to confirm an ongoing common understanding within NATO concerning Russia. Then, President Macron confirmed after the meetings that his tense handshake with President Trump was "not innocent", but meant to show that he will not be prepared to make concessions - even "symbolic ones". If that weren’t enough, Chancellor Merkel continued to fracture relations on Sunday when, at a rally in a Munich beer tent, she said “The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over… Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.”

In the meantime, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg sought to hold relations together, confirming NATO's ongoing agreement over core areas: firstly, concerning Russia, a dual-track approach, involving strong defence combined with meaningful dialogue; second, an action plan to expand operations against terrorism and ISIS; and third, a decision to develop annual national plans to set out how allies intend to meet their 2% pledge of financial contributions to NATO.

Diplomacy is not only about relations between transient individual leaders; but centuries-old institutions and nation-states. Europe's leaders need to recover a long-term vision of transatlantic relations, holding firmly to NATO.

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